That’s the driving distance from Orono, Maine, to his home in Scripps Ranch, from the upper right corner of the United States to the lower left corner, from sea to shining sea.

People ask him all the time, how a kid from sunny San Diego ended up playing basketball for the Maine Black Bears, and the 6-foot-3 guard gives them the same answer every time.

“I say, why not?” McLemore tells them. “It’s four years of my life where I want to experience something different. I get to experience the winter, being somewhere else, playing Div. I basketball. It wasn’t that big of an adjustment. Snow? You just put a jacket on.

“We have computers. We have cell phones. We’re not using by carrier pigeons. We contact people like everyone else. I can still talk to my parents, I can still talk to my brother and friends.”

And tonight he can see them. Maine coach Ted Woodward tries to schedule a hometown game for all his seniors. They didn’t quite get to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, for senior center Svetoslav Chetinov, but Woodward did keep his promise to McLemore; the Black Bears play at USD tonight at 6:05.

The last time McLemore played at the JCP, as a senior at Scripps Ranch High, he led the Falcons to the San Diego Section Division II title after losing in the final the previous two seasons.

“I wasn’t really urging it and I wasn’t expecting it,” he said of Woodward’s vow, “but he came through with it. It’s pretty exciting, but I have to keep in mind it’s just another game and not get too overwhelmed with family and friends coming.”

Maine needs him focused, too. McLemore, like his cousin Jared Dudley did at Boston College and then the NBA, has blossomed in the basketball shadows into a fine player. He is coming off a 27-point game at Notre Dame on Thursday and ranks 13th in the nation in scoring with a 21.8-point average.

McLemore originally planned to attend Brown. He was recruited by then-coach Craig Robinson (President Obama’s brother-in-law) and verbally committed, only to have the financial-aid package fall short the summer before. Instead, Robinson helped get him to Worcester (Mass.) Academy, and by the spring semester he had enrolled at Maine.

“I kind of made it a goal of mine to go the East Coast, and I didn’t really care where,” McLemore says. “At the end of the day, it just worked out for me. I wasn’t looking for a brand-name team. It wasn’t, I need to be here or I need to be there.”

He still remembers his first snowstorm: 10 inches … on Halloween. But he has adjusted to the winters and excelled at the basketball, being named all-conference in some capacity for three straight seasons and a preseason first team selection this year. Most figure he will end his career as one of 10 greatest players in school history.

What’s next?

McLemore talks of maybe playing overseas, or maybe returning to the West Coast, or maybe going somewhere else new.

“You never know where life’s going to take you or what life’s going to throw at you,” he says. “I mean, I’m from San Diego and I ended up in Orono, Maine.”